


Elegy

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [95]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, MSR, Missing Scene, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:39:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5197745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Elegy

The back seat was empty. It was empty, but it had happened again. She had seen… something… something that she couldn’t explain.

The implications of the vision, regardless of its cause, terrified her. Either Mulder was right, and only those who were dying could see these spectral visions, or her tumor had metastasized and cancer had invaded her brain, reaching her visual cortex and causing hallucinations. Both options said only one thing: her time was running out, and fast.

And Mulder… 

She had told Doctor Kosseff that she relied on Mulder, on his strength, on his support. Yet tonight she had summoned the courage to share with him her terrible secret, to admit not only to him but to herself that she truly had seen that girl, and he’d behaved as though she were actively trying to sabotage the investigation. He seemed to have no sympathy whatsoever for the fact that she’d only kept it from him for a matter of hours, half a day at most, until she had been able to come to terms with it herself. He’d come at her like she was the enemy, and it had hurt almost more than the knowledge of her rapidly impending demise.

_You can’t hide the truth from me, because if you do, then you’re working against me._

The tears welled up again, and she bent her head to the steering wheel, clenching her jaw until a single, choking sob escaped.

***

He came out the front door in time to see her car pull out of the parking lot. He looked at his watch. How long had she been sitting out there?

It wasn’t lost on him that he’d overreacted to her admission. He could chalk it up to worry and to residual jumpiness from Skinner’s apparent betrayal a few days earlier, but the fact remained that Scully hadn’t deserved that. And if she was only just now leaving… 

He gritted his teeth together and walked across the parking lot with long strides until he reached his car. Under ordinary circumstances, he would leave it for tomorrow, but this time, he needed to apologize tonight. He’d let her down, reacted like a selfish child instead of the supportive friend she needed him to be, and he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight for stewing over the pain his behavior must have caused her.

Never mind that it was profoundly hypocritical of him to be upset with her when there were things he was keeping secret as well. Noble though his reasons may be, he didn’t tell her about the ova he’d recovered from the fertility clinic, or about his slim but extant hope that Skinner had been able to make a deal that might well save her life.

Her car was easy to follow from a block or so back, or would have been if he didn’t already know the way. He didn’t race to catch up, kept enough of a distance to arrive at her place just behind her, where he would have an opportunity to make his apologies in private, rather than out on the street in the middle of the night. As he drove, he mentally replayed their last conversation, feeling worse about it with every passing block and finding himself oddly grateful that she lived so close to the crime scene.

He pulled his car to the curb outside her building, stalling only long enough to watch her walk inside before following. He caught up to her in the hallway just outside her apartment door.

“Hey, Scully.”

She jumped and spun around, visibly startled. “Jesus, Mulder, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

“No, I… no, nothing’s wrong. I just…” Why was it so hard to just apologize? Her red-rimmed eyes narrowed in concern or confusion, and he swallowed hard. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I was a jerk, and you didn’t deserve that.”

Her face crumpled, and she turned back toward the door and fumbled with the keys in her hand. He stepped closer.

“I know it was hard for you to talk about what you saw,” he continued, his voice barely above a murmur. “And yes, I wish you’d told me about it right away, but… Scully, I understand why you didn’t. And I’m sorry… for letting my own frustrations about this case stand in the way of that.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open, jerking the keys from the lock and stepping into her apartment without shutting the door or turning around. Mulder took another step forward, still in the hallway but watching her through the open door. She kept her back to him, her shoulders hunched and tense beneath her coat. 

He wasn’t sure what to do, whether to go to her or to give her space. He’d come here to apologize, and by all appearances, all he’d succeeded in doing was making her more upset. 

_But she left the door open._

Taking a deep breath, he softly stepped into the apartment.

***

She had cried so much already tonight. She’d cried because she was scared and hurt, and now… now it was all she could do to keep from breaking down yet again. All those tears and her body still craved catharsis.

So she tried to collect herself, tried to drag her runaway emotional response back under control. She couldn’t even trust herself to accept his apology without dissolving into a teary mess right there in the hallway, so she got through the door and stood, trying and mostly failing to take slow, deep breaths.

The door clicked shut behind her, and for a moment she thought he had left, but in the next moment she heard his footstep and then felt his hand, tentative, on her shoulder. The tenderness of the gesture undid her, and she spun around to press her forehead against his chest, wrapping her arms around him and clinging tightly. He made a startled noise that reverberated through his back and into her hands, and then his arms came to rest around her as well, cradling gently as if she were something breakable. One hand rose and stroked her hair, and she felt his lips brush the top of her head as he mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out.

They stood that way a long while, her fear and tension slowly melting into the warmth of his embrace. One of his hands rubbed across her back and shoulders, his movements gentle but sure, until her hitching breaths calmed, while the other hand continued petting her hair. It would have been easy to stay that way all night, surrounded by him in this cocoon of reassurance, but she didn’t want to ask that of him. There was only so much vulnerability she could stand to display before she started to feel like she wasn’t holding up her unspoken end of the bargain, to be strong, to not give him more reason to worry than she already had. With a last deep sigh, she turned her head to the side.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I did.”

She closed her eyes and squeezed her arms around him once more, then released him and took a step backward. His hands stayed on her upper arms, still cradling, thumbs stroking. He leaned down and pressed his lips softly to her forehead, and her eyes slipped closed again. For a moment, just a moment, she could almost forget about the tumor that lurked just beyond the spot where his lips rested. It was a lovely moment, and over too soon. She pulled back fully, and he dropped his arms.

“I think I’d better get some rest, now.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning, if you’re feeling up to coming into work. And if you’re not--”

“I’ll be there,” she said, and he nodded again, a nearly imperceptible smile crossing his face for just a moment.

She followed him back to the front door, stood there with her hand on the knob as he walked into the hallway and turned to face her one last time.

“Good night, Scully.”

“Good night, Mulder.”


End file.
